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This year’s strand on ‘Planning for 10 Million Londoners’ has a series of talks and debates that look at some of the challenges that face us all over the next decade, as the capital’s population nudges upwards, but what might face us over the horizon?

It can seem almost nonsensical to try to put together a plan for London for 30 years into the future – think of the changes that have taken place since 1988, in technology, transport, demographics, ways of working, leisure activities, retail – but planning decisions that are made now will have an effect on the London of 2050, so what should we be aware of?

We’re planning a joint event with CityMetric, the online urbanism magazine, to examine what the capital might look like midway through the century. Speakers include Jeremy Skinner of the GLA, Neil Bennett of Farrell’s and the discussion will be chaired by Jonn Elledge of CityMetric.

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After Crossrail2, what should be the next priority for London’s infrastructure? How will new technology help us plan for a better city? What social and economic trends are going to affect the capital’s development? Where will the population of 11 million+ live and work?

If you want to know how London might evolve in the next three decades, or if you have opinions you’d like to share, come along to what will be a fascinating debate on our possible futures. You can find out more, and book tickets, here.

One of the things that the Society has been attempting to do for the past couple of years is to plan much further ahead, so that members (and potential members) can see what’s coming up.

We’re very pleased therefore to be able to publish a programme for the rest of the year. Other events will be added, there will obviously be some minor alterations to talks and to schedules, and we’re still working on a venue for the Summer Party, but you are able to see the extent of the plans for the next months.

We’ve listed everything by month, then by theme on the back page. Events where we are currently selling tickets can be found here. To keep up to date with what is now on sale you should make sure you’re on our mailing list, or follow us on Facebook orTwitter.

This year’s Society events on planning have been curated by Colin Wilson, Strategic Planning Manager for the GLA (currently on secondment to Southwark Council). On March 6th, London Society members met at the offices of Allies and Morrison to hear him explore the implications of the new London Plan, which will guide metropolitan development over the next 20 years. Jamie Jensen reports.

For a wide-ranging discussion of the challenges and opportunities facing London over the next 20 years, the Bankside home of architects Allies and Morrison was a fortuitous location: in the past 20 years, with the addition of the Millennium Bridge and Blackfriars Thameslink station, the revival of Borough Market and the opening of the Tate Modern art museum, the surrounding area has been utterly transformed. Thanks to huge public and private investment, Bankside is in many ways a case study of successful long-term urban regeneration.

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Using the story of Bankside as a model for how London can cope with the many issues facing the city today, a generally upbeat tone for the evening was set by Eric Sorenson, London Society trustee and former head of the London Docklands Development Corporation, who vividly described the dour days when the Tate was still a power station, and London as a whole had shrunk from 8.6 million to under 7 million in population. No stranger to strategic planning himself, Eric introduced Colin Wilson by contrasting the relatively dry and jargon-packed 500-plus pages of the new London Plan with Colin’s energised efforts on behalf of the Borough of Southwark to develop a long-term vision for the Old Kent Road in anticipation of the forthcoming extension to the London Underground Bakerloo Line.

Touching upon the challenges of coordinating how contemporary London grows and evolves to absorb a predicted population of 11 million by the year 2040, Colin Wilson likened the process, and the competing political and economic pressures involved, to cooking a Christmas turkey: The key, he said, is “Don’t overstuff, and don’t overcook.” Swapping the culinary analogy for city planning, Colin illustrated the complexities involved in this scale of forward thinking by overlaying maps of London’s transportation, energy and other infrastructure with graphic depictions of land use and land ownership, building typologies and urban density, along with more sociological indicators of relative wealth and health. The London Plan takes all these dynamics into account, planning for growth “…on the basis of its potential to improve the health and quality of life of all Londoners, to reduce inequalities and to make the city a better place to live, work and visit.”

The official comment period for the new London Plan closed earlier this month, and following another year of discussion and consideration the final version is due to be published by the end of 2019. Speaking on the day after the government announced plans to change the National Policy Planning Framework, with the somewhat contradictory aims of increasing home-building while protecting the environment, Colin also touched upon the Green Belt — a topic he will return to cover more fully at his next London Society talk, on April 10th.

During this year the Society is organising members-only visits to some of London’s leading architectural practices to meet the principals and to hear about forthcoming projects as well as to see some of the practice’s recent work. On Monday February 26th, some two dozen London Society members enjoyed a wintry evening at the Clerkenwell atelier of Studio Egret Westarchitecture. Jamie Jensen reports.

After an informal tour of Studio Egret West’s ground-floor, open-plan work space, the group gathered around bright yellow conference tables for wine, cheese and a fully illustrated chronicle of the firm’s architecture, urban planning and landscape design projects, as featured in their recent book Framing Serendipity: An Approach to Evolving Places.

Founded in 2004 by Christophe Egret and David West, who met while working for Will Alsop on the RIBA Stirling Prize-winning Peckham Library, Studio Egret West found early success collaborating with developer Urban Splash on the regeneration of Sheffield’s 1961 modernist landmark Park Hill housing complex.

The two partners guided us through an entertaining timeline of their projects, highlighting such diverse challenges as developing a coherent design idiom to unify the look and feel of London Underground stations, and the 2012 project to accommodate a new public library, swimming pool and sports hall at the foot of an undulating high-rise tower amidst the Victorian suburbia of Clapham High Street. Current Egret West projects in and around London range from the controversial remodelling of Erno Goldfinger’s landmark Balfron Tower to ambitious new-build housing schemes for the former Olympic Park, a 1,500-unit scheme along the Thames for the London Borough of Barking, and the recently completed Caxton Works at Canning Town, which mixes street-level manufacturing workshops with 12 floors of private housing in the gritty East London docklands.

Dave Hill, formerly the Guardian’s award-winning London commentator, is behind the ‘On London‘ website, and online publication that seeks to report and explain how this extraordinary and complex city is changing in these momentous times. Here he explains what the site is trying to achieve, and why he’s running a crowdfunding campaign to provide extra resources.

London’s infinite capacity for change and renewal, its endless churn and swirl, are central to its appeal – at least, they are to me, who escaped into the city from small town attitudes in 1979 and have never wished to leave.

Yet the speed of its evolution in recent years has created concern as well as excitement. London’s population and economy have boomed, but these signs of success have also engendered problems, anxieties and resistance.

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Public transport is overcrowded, the right kinds of housing are in short supply and, at the same time, redevelopment schemes that might address some of these troubles are often the focus of local and wider political opposition.

It’s hard to navigate this complex landscape, and too much of the journalism about the city these days feels shallow and populist when what’s required is depth and nuance.

I started my website On London just over a year ago in order to fill that gap after my award-winning columns about the capital for the Guardian were discontinued. During that time I believe the site has begun to establish itself as a respected source of fair reporting and commentary about the big issues facing London, written by a variety of contributors from a range of informed perspectives.

I have been helped in this endeavour by the London Society, including one its luminaries, Peter Murray, who has written some excellent pieces for me. the Society and I are also collaborating on putting on events later this year, including a debate about what Brexit will mean for London.

This is quite an honour for me – the London Society is over 100 years old and On London has only existed for 13 months. But I hope very much that it can keep going and growing for a while yet. For that to happen I need the help of readers and others.

I am currently running a five-week, all-or-nothing crowdfunding campaign with the aim of raising £25,000 by no later than 08:22 on 8 March. If fellow London Society members, colleagues and friends feel able to donate I would be enormously grateful. The Crowdfunder web page is here: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/on-london-co-uk

Join the London Society

As a member of The London Society, you’ll get a behind-the-scenes look at the forces that are shaping the future of London and discover a host of fascinating public programmes, tours, lectures and other convenings that celebrate this great city.